`What About Brian': He's picked up

Apparently ABC liked those extra scripts for "What About Brian" it asked for a couple of weeks ago.

The network has picked up the second-year series for the full season, adding nine more episodes to the 13 it initially ordered for 2006-07. Although the show delivers relatively modest overall ratings, it does well enough among younger viewers - particularly young women - to justify the pickup.

ABC Entertainment president Stephen McPherson is also an avowed fan of the show, which he gave a somewhat surprising pickup last spring after "Brian" averaged only 6.3 million viewers in its initial run.

The show's total audience has grown a little this season, to 6.7 million viewers. More important to ABC, though, is that it holds on to nearly all of the adults 18-49 audience from its lead-in, "The Bachelor: Rome," and draws particularly well among women 18-34.

"What About Brian," created by Dana Stevens and executive produced by J.J. Abrams ("Lost"), stars Barry Watson as a 30ish guy in the midst of trying to figure out his life. The cast also includes Sarah Lancaster, Matthew Davis, Rick Gomez, Amanda Detmer and Rosanna Arquette.

The pickup also gives ABC some stability in a season where some of its first-year shows are on shaky ground. The critically hailed drama "The Nine" has struggled thus far on Wednesday nights, and the network recently shelved "Six Degrees" until at least January; "Men in Trees," which has also earned a full-season pickup, will take the latter show's place on Thursdays at the end of this month.

Detroit's Motown Records will forever be important as both a hit factory and an African American-owned label that achieved massive mainstream success and influence. We select our 25 favorite singles from the "Sound of Young America".

Ruben Fleischer's toothless antihero film, Venom is like a blockbuster from 15 years earlier: one-dimensional, loose plot, inconsistent tone, and packaged in the least-offensive, most mass appeal way possible. Sigh.

Sonic Boom is Peter Kember, a veteran of 1980s indie space rockers Spacemen 3, as well as Spectrum, E.A.R., and a whole bunch of other fascinating stuff. On his first solo album in 30 years, he urges us all to take our foot off the gas pedal.

The passage of time tends to make old films more interesting, such as these seven films of the late '40s and '50s from British directors John Boulting, Carol Reed, David Lean, Anthony Kimmins, Charles Frend, Guy Hamilton, and Leslie Norman.